The blurring of K-beauty

Business Daily

BBC

News, Business

4.4 • 796 Ratings

🗓️ 28 October 2025

⏱️ 18 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Renowned for its multi-step skincare routine and its foundation in the ever trendy Korean culture, K-beauty has become a multi-billion dollar industry across the globe.

The term covers a wide range of skincare, make-up and cosmetics from South Korea and is lauded for its quality and value.

But as demand grows, tens of thousands of companies are claiming to be K-beauty, and not all of them are based in South Korea. This has raised questions about its identity and authenticity.

In the midst of its identity crisis, counterfeiters are now getting involved.

So, what puts the K in K-beauty?

We hear from manufacturers, retailers and industry bodies who might have an idea.

Presented and produced by David Cann Sound mix: Ben Houghton

(Picture: A young Asian woman applying a moisturising cream in front of a mirror. Credit: Getty Images)

Transcript

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0:00.0	BBC Sounds, Music, radio, podcasts.
0:09.0	Hello and Anjongashmik. I'm David Kahn, and today I want to talk about a beauty trend
0:13.7	that's taking over the world.
0:15.1	I've been testing out some of the most wild K beauty products to see if they actually...
0:19.2	Today I want to talk about some of my favorite K- Beauty products.
0:22.2	Today I'm going to be sharing with you all of my top K-beauts.
0:26.0	But what is K-beauty? Exactly.
0:27.9	Made in Korea, popular in Korea, based in Korea.
0:31.6	At first glance, it might seem straightforward.
0:34.0	Korean beauty brands.
0:35.2	But this definition is quickly getting blurred.
0:37.7	I am Finnish. And I'm South Korean. That's why we have this identity crisis. Our brand also
0:44.8	has this identity crisis. As the demand for K beauty products has increased, more companies
0:50.1	based outside of Korea are joining the glow game. But this smudging of lines has opened up the market to a serious problem.
0:57.2	Out of 29, 26 of them were fake.
1:00.3	So that's the 90% counterfeit rate.
1:02.7	A potentially dangerous threat to customers.
1:06.1	So how strong is the K in K Beauty?
1:09.4	That's all coming up on Business Daily, on the BBC World Service.
1:18.8	So today I'm going to be showing you my skincare routine.
1:22.4	But first, I'm going to get my hairband on because I don't want the hair getting in my eyes and everything.
1:28.3	Okay, so warm water.
	...

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